Less the Hunger
by ashestoashesanddusttodust
Summary: Quistis is considered the world expert on all things Blue magic, but she knows very much how little she knows.


**Less the Hunger  
**

**A Word**: An attempt to study Quistis' Blue magic more thoroughly. It got away from me. Just a bit.

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Pavos is a small fishing village a good thirty miles south of Dollet. Their economy relies entirely on their fishing industry which is trucked into Dollet to feed the hungry tourists who want all the delicacies the sea has to offer with none of the hassle of actually having to deal with fishing ships cluttering the beautiful beaches. Shipments are made twice a day to bring in fresh items to a chilled warehouse which acts as the focal point for any restaurant or hotel looking to buy. Once in the morning before the sun rises, and once in the evening several hours before the dinner rush begins.

The first day a shipment is missed is noted with much concern. The morning load was received without comment or anything out of the ordinary noted. The warehouse workers had joked with the drivers as they unloaded the iced food for inspection and sale. The supervisor noticed the shipment was less than it usually was, but did not comment when signing off on it. Things like that happened. Not all days are good fishing days after all. Mornings were always light on demand too. Not many tourists demanded fish for breakfast after all. The second shipment would surely make up for the light morning haul.

The evening shipment is late though. The crew hired to unload the usually heavier haul get lost in a card game waiting for it, and it isn't until the first frazzled worker of an upscale restaurant demands to know where the fresh salmon is that anyone realizes four hours have passed. The evening shipment never arrives that night. Calls to the town go unanswered and the owner of the business comes in himself to parcel out what is left of his stock to irate buyers. A few men from the crew are packed into a truck and sent out to Pavos to figure out what is going on.

They don't return, and the calls, placed throughout the night, still go unanswered. The morning shipment does not come in either.

It's at this point that the mayor becomes involved. The tourist season is not in full swing, but any threat to the number one industry of the city is a concern to him. A small force of armed men are sent to Pavos with strict instructions to report in every mile of the way there. Erit, another fisherman's village to the north, is contacted and several hasty contracts are drawn up to supply the city. A small bit of fish to hopefully hold the city over until the situation with Pavos can be solved.

The men report reliably to their Captain all the way up to Pavos. The last transmission received describes a level of abandonment to the village that shouldn't be possible. Deserted streets and abandoned boats with no sign of any people at all. No further contact is received from the men, and all attempts to reach them meet with silence.

As the sun starts to set on the day a man staggers into Dollet and is picked up by authorities as a drunk. He's severely wounded though and taken to a hospital quickly. He dies before they can get a single word out of him, and is only then identified as one of the men first sent to Pavos. His body is torn and ripped by claws. Deep wounds shaped like teeth ring his right shoulder, and no one can explain how the man did not bleed out before reaching Dollet.

SeeD is called in at this point.

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Quistis walks the streets of Pavos with her whip in hand, ready to lash out at any hint of movement. Her breath wafts through the chill air of the morning, mingling with the fog rolling in from the sea that makes it hard to see more than two houses ahead of her at any given time. The fog wraps the village in a smothering cocoon of silence that makes her steps echo eerily. Wrapping her up in a false sense of utter isolation and disconnect that has been known to make even the most hardened soldiers flinch.

The best that SeeD has to offer stifles a yawn.

She'd be more on edge if her every sense wasn't open to scan the area, and not finding anything dangerous at all. The colorful senses of a Wendigo fill Quistis' mind with a mental grid of the town and not much else. There's no quick green streaks of animals, no firecracker blinking of insects, no red blips of monsters, and none of the varied lights that indicate the life force of humans aside from those she entered the village with.

Rinoa blazes a bright blue at the furthest edge of Quistis' awareness near the docks. Squall's cool midnight flicker close by as always. Irvine is behind her, a warm weight that glows like an ember. Zell flickers like quicksilver to the East, moving too quickly to be doing the methodical search they were all told to engage in. Selphie-

"Quistis!" Selphie's yellow lighting strike brightness pierces the fog well before she comes skidding around the corner of a house at the far edge of what Quistis can actually see with her enhanced eyes.

Quistis lets go of the Wendigo and her awareness shrinks in around her back to a regular human's. Leaving her deaf and blind for a few seconds in the fog before she adjusts to the loss of a sense that was not naturally hers to begin with. Selphie, so clear before, becomes a dark shadow darting unsteadily down the street. "Yes?"

Selphie startles, obviously not expecting her to be so close, but recovers quickly. "I think I found the soldier's vehicle."

"You think?" Quistis is close enough now to see that the way Selphie is jumping, lightly on the balls of her feet, is not her usual irrepressible expression of energy. It's the way she gets when she's trying to stay limber in between fights.

"You have to see it," Selphie's eyes are bright and her smile honest even though her shoulders stay tensed. She grabs Quistis' weak arm and drags her behind a house. Her own nun-chucks dangle loose in her right hand. Ready to lash out at anything and even from behind Quistis can tell that her friend is scanning everything. Eyes moving constantly as they cut through a fenced in yard and emerge onto what looks like the main square.

The truck is large and bulky in the fog, and they're not even half way across the square before Quistis is keying the mike for the radio clipped to her belt, "We've found something in the square. You all might want to come see this."

Static hisses briefly through the earbud in her ear before Squall's voice comes through, "Affirmative. We have nothing on the docks."

"On my way," Zell says immediately after Squall, words almost lost in the squawk of keying the mike up. Irvine doesn't say anything, but Quistis didn't expect him to.

Selphie circles the truck, but doesn't actually look at it. All of her attention remains firmly outward of the perimeter she's unconsciously set up. Quistis doesn't blame her. The truck is a disaster.

It used to be military grade. Perhaps something leftover from the Galbadian invasion. It still has heavy armor plating on it that doesn't match with the lighter armor Dollet's forces usually favor. She can see it through the massive tears and holes in the body of the vehicle. Four slashes at an even length apart, Quistis notes distantly as she leans into the cab of the truck, claws of some kind. A monster attack is likely though there's a distinct lack of blood on the seats.

There's a distinct lack of blood _anywhere_, and that's starting to worry Quistis.

Glass crunches under her boots as she circles the vehicle. Looking at it from all sides, but there's nothing else to see aside from the ruined truck. "No blood."

"No bullets," Selphie answers and Quistis hears a metallic tapping. She turns back to her friend and sees the familiar shape of a rifle on the ground at her feet. She taps it again with the toe of her boot. "They didn't even get one shot off. The clips are all fully loaded, and the weapons trail off from here," Selphie waves in the general area of where she's facing, "to a house that way."

"No bodies either," Irvine drawls and melts out of the fog. Quistis watches the muscles of Selphie's back go tight and rigid before relaxing. A split second response that isn't repeated when Zell follows close on Irvine's heels. Quiet for all of his energy that Quistis still thinks she can see. "It ain't natural, I tell you."

"Man, nothing about this is natural," Zell gives an exaggerated shudder and then drops something on the ground. He cocks his head towards Quistis. "Found this under a porch. Any idea what it belongs too?"

"What were you doing under a porch?" Irvine asks with enough amusement to make Zell start to sputter defensively.

Quistis ignores them and kneels down to study what Zell's brought her. It's an appendage, monstrous in nature, and definitely predatory. It's fleshy colored, vaguely arm shaped, and has claws that are half as long as any of the meaty sections. Beyond that, Quistis cannot really tell much because she has never seen any creature that could match it in her life before.

"Uh oh," Selphie murmurs, but she's not looking at the appendage. "I know that frown. You have no idea what it is do you?"

"I don't," Quistis admits and reaches out to hover one hand over it. There's a _pull_ to the appendage, one she's all too familiar with. It's the pull she feels when her nature as a Blue Mage senses something new. Something it can reach out to and absorb. It itches under her skin, the urge to take it in and make it _hers_. "Was there any blood nearby? Any sign of a fight?"

"Nah, nothing at all," Zell frowns and leans over her. His eyes uneasy as they flicker from the limb to her hovering hand. "Would've missed it if I hadn't almost tripped over the thing."

"It callin' to you, Quisty?" Irvine asks from over Selphie's shoulder. His rifle cradled in the crook of his arm, and hat low over his eye, but finger resting light and ready on the trigger well.

"Yes," Quistis hesitates briefly. There's nothing else she can get from the limb. Nothing visual to see at least. She slides her glove off and can feel the air shift as both Irvine and Zell take a few cautious steps back from her. Only Selphie remains, and she leans closer. Eyes bright and fascinated the way very few people Quistis knows are.

Her magic is rare, and has —and stil is— been lumped together in with the realm of Sorceresses. Something to be wary of, and Quistis can't really blame most people for being afraid of it. For being afraid of her by extension. It does make Selphie's wide-eyed awe hard to handle at times though.

Quistis brushes her fingers over the cool flesh of the appendage and feels that _pull_ latch onto her skin. It digs heated hooks into her fingers that don't actually hurt, and the knowledge dormant in the dead flesh flows into her.

It's hot and nearly suffocating as it balls inside her chest. A tight ball that Quistis has to breathe around. Each breath relaxing it slightly until she can reach inside of herself. Can get a hold of it and coax it open enough to pull the creature out of it and sink it into her DNA.

Quistis gasps as her skin burns. Her breath escapes her in thick white clouds as she throws her head back to stare up into the endless sky. Her legs itch to move, her hands to claw, and her teeth to _rend_. Hunger. Bright and all consuming bursts inside of her and Quistis curls around it with a whimper. Her fingers clawing into the rocky ground and digging deep furrows into the pavement as her sense snap outward. Looking for and finding what she needs so very, very close.

_Food_.

She lunges. Hands stretched out and wide for the closest meal. For the littlest one that falls back with an irritating noise, and fails to get away fast enough. It's weak and will fill the cold void in her stomach for a little while.

There's a flurry of alarmed movement as the larger ones react to protect the small one. Too slow, too late and she can almost _taste_ her reward. Almost, almost, but there's a wall in the way. A cold metal wall that blocks her hands, sparks shooting up as her nails scrape uselessly against it and her small prey gets away. Quistis shrieks and turns on the new one who is blocking her. Coiling up to lunge when a different sort of wall wraps around her completely. Smothering her limbs and holding her completely still.

Quistis shakes and wails and tries so hard to move, but nothing works. Nothing moves and even her cries are not moving. Not even the world which is so still and silent and-

Pain and clarity rip through her mind in a blazing inferno. Quistis sinks to her knees with a thud and a gasp. The Stop spell letting her go reluctantly as some burning combination of Esuna and Holy banishes the creature and rips the human to the forefront of her mind again.

Sound returns with a desperate clarity that is shocking because she didn't know she wasn't hearing things before. Didn't know she wasn't thinking right, or acting right at all. Quistis gasps again and the air tastes sweet on her tongue as she keeps shaking. Rinoa's dark eyes stare back at her in worry. Her lower lip is caught between her white teeth as she holds Quistis up by her shoulders. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Quistis manages even though she feels nothing like fine. Hunger still gnaws at her but the force is bearable. "Did I-?"

"Nope! We're all fine," Selphie spins into view and she's grinning. There's just enough of an edge of cautiousness to it that tells Quistis how very close they came to that answer being a lie.

It's been a long time since Quistis last lost control like that when absorbing a creature. Not since her very first time when her power had been all that had kept her alive after her team was eradicated. The bestial instincts of cockatrice leading her away from the larger force that was trying to kill her, and leading her back to the extraction point that she knew was safe.

"What happened?" Squall asks. His gaze is cool but not accusing as he pulls his gunblade from the ground. The flat edge enough to keep her from what she'd tried so hard to get not a few seconds before.

"Zell found a monster part," Irvine tilts his hat up and nods to where the appendage was. Quistis can still feel the sparks of it being absorbed into her. "Quistis ate it."

"Irvine!" Selphie is quick to protest, as always, at the crude explanation. It doesn't bother her as much as Selphie assumes it does, but Quistis lets her hit the man for it.

"What did you find out?" Rinoa asks, her fingers tightening into her shoulders. A comfort offered witht he understanding in the woman's eyes. Out of all of them, Rinoa is the one who best understands what happens when Quistis absorbs the monsters they hunt.

"Hunger," Quistis shudders one last time as the pangs finally start to fade. The ghost of it will haunt her though. Cautiously she reaches for the new creature and pulls it out. The hunger intensifies, but she can push past it now. "It's always hungry. I don't think there's enough food in the world to satisfy it."

Her nails thicken and grow hard. Extending out into razor sharp claws that gleam dully. There's something alien in the feeling of it that isn't present in any of her abilities. Once she's taken in part of the creature it becomes a part of her. A natural extension of her own body. The cactuar's needles as easy to use as her own arms.

"There's something artificial to it," Quistis murmurs and only Rinoa doesn't shift uneasily when she looks up. Her eyes are changed too. She can see the blood flowing in the veins of her friends, can see what makes them up. The hunger stirs again and its very specific in what it wants now. It doesn't want to actually _eat_ anyone. The hunger is to bring them in, to make them like her.

Quistis lets the creature sink back down. Her hands shift back to fragile flesh and blood, and her vision returns to normal. "I know where the people are."

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The Arseti was once considered a jewel in Galbadia's naval forces. A warship made at the height of the country's military power, before the Sorceress ground them down to the poverty Glabadia is still recovering from even now.

Details on why the Arseti was abandoned at sea are sketchy as most things that happened after Lunar Cry in Esthar, and finding out the how and why of it has been pretty low on the list for the war crime tribunal. Balamb has been tracking the ghost ship's progress though, and Quistis wonders who dropped the ball by not informing them that the ship had drifted close to shore before the mission to Pavos. Close enough for curious fishermen to board it.

The hunger abates as the Ragnarok banks near the drifting ship.

"I don't see anything," Irvine eventually says after they've circled the ship a few times. "You sure about this?"

"Yes," Quistis says as Selphie holds them in a hover over the deck. The wind whips through the open door and Quistis pulls the unnamed creature up. Feeling the shift that goes through her whole body. "They're all here."

She can feel it, feel them. Below the deck and deep in the heart of the ship.

"You shouldn't be going alone," Irvine grumbles but shifts back to let her step out so the toes of her boots are out in open air. "Don't we have rules against this kind of thing?"

"Special circumstances allow it," Squall refutes, and Quistis is grateful more than ever that he is the way he is. That he will take her word that she can handle this. That it's best no one else come along. Squall might deny it, but he's learned to trust them all on their own strengths. Squall steps back from where he was leaning near the open hatch. Giving her all the room she needs. "Signal us when you need a pick up."

Quistis nods with all the composure she can muster and jumps.

The fall isn't great, and with the heat changing her skin she barely feels the impact of landing. Her nails itch to grow but she doesn't allow them to. There's no need for it here. All she needs are the changes below her skin.

These creatures are powerful, Quistis feels it in the degree of shifting. In the fact that there is no limit to it. Pavos never stood a chance against them. _No one_ stands a chance against them.

She walks and lets her instincts take over. Guiding her feet below and cutting her of from sight of the Ragnarok.

The air is heavy and still as she walks through the ship and finds pretty much everything she expected to find. Whatever the Arseti was doing at the end of the war, it wasn't transporting troops or weaponry. Not the traditional kind at least.

Quistis walks through rooms converted into laboratories. Ignores the remains of failures and the obvious signs of successes. The last growing larger as she heads to the bottom most level. Where the light of the sun doesn't reach and her new eyes open wider.

They are massed all around her as she descends a ladder. Curled around the dead machinery that used to power the ship and their creation. They watch her come to them and Quistis finally reconciles what she knew from that moment in Pavos.

It. She is dealing with _one_ creature, one being. It just has several bodies. Bodies that can shift at will and infect anyone or anything it comes across. Absorbing them into a strange collective whole.

Dozens of eyes watch Quistis as she stops somewhere vaguely in the middle of the contorted bodies. One intelligence gleaming through the eyes of things that used to human and things that used to be monsters.

"Hello," Quistis says and there's a gusty sigh from one of the bodies. The hunger is completely gone from her, but not this creature. She reaches out for the body closest to her. Letting her fingers hover over a green scaled head. She can feel the hunger radiating off of it and curling around her fingers greedily. Seeking for something more than just food. "You must be so lonely."

Scales press into her skin and Quistis smiles sadly.

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"It was an experiment into Blue magic," Dr. Kadowaki says after a week of deciphering the highly technical and often rambling reports Quistis recovered from the burning and sinking ship. "They wanted to create a way to do what you do naturally."

"I know," Quistis replies, and traces her fingers over the lines of text that refuse to give up the secrets she truly wanted to know. The only parts of this tragedy that she can't find the answers to.

The reports detail the experimentation done on monsters and humans. The changes made to all the subjects to give them the ability to both take skills from other monsters, and allow them to use them. The notes ramble more and more the longer the experiments go on. Growing progressively less sane as the successes mount. Less reliant for information.

Quistis knows what was eventually made. A creature with the ability to absorb everything. To take in and make all things a part of itself. She knows what wasn't made as well, a way to control it.

"I don't want to report on this," Kadowaki says. The older woman sighing as she pulls her glasses off and pushes her share of the reports and their notes away. Her weariness adds decades to her face, and just serves to highlight the fact that she's the second oldest person in Balamb Garden. An ancient forty among the sea of Cadets and SeeD personnel who barely average twenty-two before retirement or death brings them down. "You know that if we breath one word about this anywhere a half dozen illegal labs will start in on trying to replicate it."

Galbadia has already done a good job covering it up, and can be counted on to not bring it up until after they've paid all their reparations from the war at least. Something that's decades away from happening. More than enough time for a few discreet search and destroy missions. Missions that Quistis has the authority to sanction herself with one other high ranking SeeD's approval.

"Squall won't ask questions," Quistis says and starts to slowly gather up the reports. What she's looking for isn't in them, and there's no point in reading them again. It's past time to destroy them all. "I'll take care of this. Thank you for your help."

Kadowaki reaches out and places a hand on her shoulder before she can leave. Her eyes are worried, just like they were the very first day Quistis came into the medical bay at twelve to stitch up a grat bite in her left calf. A vicious wound that hadn't wanted to close even under the steady stream of cures from the Instructor at the time.

"Don't do this alone, Quistis," Kadowaki says and her worry is well founded. Cid might have been the one to welcome Quistis and her Blue magic back into the school, but it was Kadowaki who taught her how to use it. Who had spent the time listening to her worries and fears as she learned to control it along with passing her SeeD exam. She knew how close Quistis kept her ability to her own chest.

"I'm not alone," Quistis assures her, and only feels slightly guilty that she doesn't mean her words the way Kadowaki takes them.

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The thing with Blue magic is that it's far more common than people believe. There are a number of people with the ability born every day, and most of them will never know what they can do. Thankfully.

Using Blue magic takes a strong and ordered mind. One that's good enough to stand up under the strain of absorbing the monsters abilities and instincts. It's not an easy thing to do. Absorbing the instinct and abilities of a monster is a battle. One mind must always be stronger in order to handle it.

There are a dozen men and women who broke under the strain of absorbing their very first monster. Failing their attempt, usually an unconscious reaction to being attacked, and becoming something between human and monster. Something that is neither and is not understood by those around them. If they survive the attempt at all that is.

Usually shuttled away to asylums, those people never become whole again, and the cause of their sudden decent into madness is never correctly diagnosed. Finding out about them is something that Quistis has only recently stumbled upon. An awkward mission putting her into close contact with a woman who failed to fully absorb an imp nearly ten years before Quistis was even born.

The clear example of the price of failure had rattled her, and prompted Quistis to research more into the matter. To uncover the others and come to her frightening conclusion of how common the ability it, and how very easy it is for a person to break from it.

She's spent almost the full year since Ultimecia's defeat facing the consequences of untrained Blue Mages. Watching as the numbers of broken minds grows as the number of monsters increases. The numbers of untrained Mages have nearly doubled, and Quistis has worked out those calculations. Has a good idea how bad things are going to get very soon.

With training, they won't break. With just a little instruction they'll survive their first encounter whole and alive. The problem has always been in figuring out who has the ability to use Blue magic. There is not indication, no sign or signal. Detection is usually something that always comes too late for a Mage.

Usually.

"I need to go to Galbadia. Solo, no supervision," Quistis says to Squall in the elevator as they take it up to the top floor to report to Cid. Her former student tilts his head to listen but says nothing. "Someone there has information on this that needs to be lost."

Squall is silent but Quistis knows he's thinking it through. He's heard the things she hasn't said and has drawn his own conclusions to it. She adjusts her gloves and waits.

"I'll sanction it," Squall offers when the elevator starts to slow. The doors open with a ding and they step out but don't proceed into Cid's office immediately. The desk beside the door is empty for the moment and they take the privacy offered. "What's going on?"

"You don't need to know," Quistis says gently because questioning is something they're still encouraging in Squall. He nods in acceptance, but the reluctance in his body language warms her heart. It's not doubt over her decision, but worry over her well being. "If things go the way I plan, I'll tell you about some of it."

Squall nods and turns to walk into the office. He says nothing more and lets her take the lead in the verbal report Cid had asked for their completed mission.

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Someone in Galbadia has figured out how to identify Blue Mages. Quistis leans left as the train she's on takes a slow turn. The sound of the engine hums through her body from where her feet are planted on the floor. She has a list of names to start with, and a better than average idea of where to start looking for the knowledge she needs.

Deep inside of her the hunger is gone. Extinguished with the child-like mind that she had felt try to wrap around her as she absorbed the creature in the ship. Body by body. It's power bleeding into hers, and it's mind trying to clumsily override hers. Not to survive, but in an attempt to _connect_.

Somewhere during the experiment a child had been brought in. Young enough that it was able to absorb everything thrown at it and not break. Young enough that the child hadn't been able to _understand_ why it should be afraid. Hadn't known what it should or should not do. It had simply acted with no thought or reason.

Like most children do.

Quistis taps her fingers against the cold chain links of her whip and reflects on the relief she had felt when she refused to be absorbed. When she persisted in staying separate from the collection of consciousness. It was the relief of a child finding out it isn't alone and had been so strong it nearly broke her determination then and there.

She reflects on all the things she needs to do and all things she needs to learn. Both to make sure something like this never happens again, and to stop an even larger catastrophe that's on the horizon.

Quistis leans into the next turn and patiently starts laying out her plans.

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End file.
